The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case Wednesday intended to force the federal government's environmental agency to regulate some greenhouse-gas emissions.

A group of applicants including 12 states, 13 environmental organizations and three cities wants the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide tailpipe emissions from new vehicles. Carbon dioxide is believed to contribute to global warming.

Lightning on Sunday night struck and killed two buffalo cows and three buffalo calves, including a white buffalo-Miracle's Second Chance-on the Heider farm south of Janesville, Dave Heider said this morning.

Heider discovered the five dead buffalo when he went to check on the animals this morning before going to work.

BEIJING, Nov. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. marine scientists say they've found humpback whales have a type of brain cell that is also seen in human brains.

Researchers of the Department of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York studied the brains of humpback whales and discovered a type of cell called a spindle neuron in the cortex, in areas comparable to where they are seen in humans and great apes.

KINSHASA, Nov 27 (Reuters) - A volcano erupted on Monday near the eastern Congolese town of Goma, which was devastated by a volcanic eruption in 2002, but the latest eruption did not threaten the town, a senior vulcanologist at the scene said.

"This seems like a big eruption. It is on the northwest side. The lava will be flowing to the north and not the south, where the town is," Celestin Kasereka, head of Goma's volcano observatory, told Reuters by telephone.

Europeans are overwhelmingly convinced that human activity is contributing to global warming, and a majority would be prepared to accept restrictions on their lifestyle to combat it, according to a poll for the Financial Times.

Research carried out this month by Harris Interactive in Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain found that 86 per cent of people believed humans were contributing to climate change, and 45 per cent thought it would be a threat to them and their families within their lifetimes.